Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act of 2026

Key Points

• Instead of justices serving until they die or choose to retire, the president would nominate one new justice every two years, in the first and third year of each presidential term, subject to Senate confirmation.
• Only the 9 most recently appointed justices would hear regular appeals cases, which in effect caps a justice's active role deciding most cases at about 18 years before a newer appointee takes their place on that rotation.
• Justices who age off the 9-seat appeals rotation keep their office for life. They still decide rare state-versus-state disputes and can take on other official judicial duties.
• If a justice dies, retires, or is removed and the total drops below 9, the president must immediately nominate enough new justices to bring the number back to 9, so the court is never short-staffed for long.
• The goal is to make Supreme Court turnover predictable so every president gets roughly the same number of picks, lowering the stakes of any single justice's death or retirement.
• None of this starts right away. It only kicks in once the next full four-year presidential term begins after the bill is signed into law.

Impact Analysis

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